Carrying Hope; Pre-Registration Nursing Students’ Understanding and Awareness of Their Spiritual Needs from Their Experiences in Practice: A Grounded Theory Study

Spirituality is integral to health and wellbeing and a fundamental element of nursing care. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that spirituality is a frequently ignored aspect of nursing education and care. From 2008 to 2010 a Glaserian grounded theory design was used to explore and explain pre-registration nursing students’ personal understanding of their own spirituality and the relationship between experiences in clinical practice and spiritual awareness. While there is evidence that examines relevance of providing spiritual care to service users, at that time, minimal research has been undertaken to examine spiritual needs in pre-registration nursing students. A theory of carrying hope emerged from the findings to explain how pre-registration nursing students resolve clinical experiences with spiritual awareness. The findings identified that pre-registration nursing students’ awareness of spirituality can be explained in three main Basic Social Processes (BSPs): struggling, safeguarding and seeking. This study highlights the extreme personal challenge pre-registration nursing students experience as a result of their experiences in clinical practice and the impact this has upon their spiritual awareness. Recommendations from this study include the implementation of a model of pastoral care for tutors to support spiritual needs of during transition from student to registration.